Friday, December 27, 2013

Redwood Creekbed Cam

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Squirrel in the creek bed.

I spotted a couple small pieces of orange rind on the ground near the log when I came to pick up the camera's memory card, and thought, "Uh-oh, someone's been down here!" No problem, I guess, since the camera had not been molested.

Coyote spots the camera trap.

I quickly found out where the orange rinds came from when I got home and downloaded the crop of pictures.... I decided to break my prohibition against showing the people who get caught in the camera trap for this group, since it's just too good to pass up, and no one's face even shows. This group of five had a picnic lunch on Christmas Day, spending about an hour and fifteen minutes tripping more than 200 frames on the camera trap. Luckily, no one appeared to notice the camera the whole time.

But the local wildlife noticed that a picnic had occurred!

These two raccoons were all over the picnic area for quite a while.

And the coyote was also very interested, taking up numerous frames as he poked around the area.

I figured this spot would be safe from catching people, at least until the rains get the creek flowing again, which is when I might expect salmon biologists to wander by. I can't imagine anyone picnics in this spot on a regular basis. I was amazed when I dropped by to pick up the memory card this afternoon, however. There were cars parked all over the place. I wondered if some kind of special event was taking place. Nope. It was all for people going to Muir Woods! People were parking more than a mile away. Numerous cars had parking citations on their windows. I haven't spent much time down in the valley in a long time. Maybe it's often like that on holidays and weekends these days.

As I scrolled through the pictures I kept expecting the next one to show someone noticing the camera trap. I think trail cameras are just so odd that most people look at them without really seeing them.